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TODAY MARKS THE 27th anniversary of the Enniskillen Remembrance Day Bombing in which eleven people lost their lives and dozens more were injured.
One of those people was Stephen Gault, who was just 18 at the time and whose father Samuel was killed in the bombing.
In conversation with TheJournal.ie, he described his day, which started in a debate with his mother about whether or not it would be appropriate for him to wear the new leather jacket his dad had bought him to the Remembrance Day ceremony. He and his dad headed to the cenotaph in Enniskillen and took up the position they stood in every year for the ceremony.
A crowd was starting to form and I saw people I might not have seen for 12 months since the last service. A policeman walked past and acknowledged my dad, who had serviced in the RUC, and I turned to ask him who it was. I never got that answer. I don’t remember the explosion, I just remember getting pushed in the back and falling. There was an eerie, eerie silence, except for a shop alarm in the distance.
He looked for his father, who had been standing next to him, and said he knew from his injuries that he had been killed instantly.
I remember running around as if it was a horror movie, in a daze. There was that eerie silence and then as if someone flicked a switch the sound just erupted – women screaming, children crying. Being in the middle of that, it’s so surreal, you just think you’re not really there.
The immediate aftermath of the bombing was a blur for the 18-year-old. He was told the thick leather jacket he wore that day, torn to shreds by shrapnel, had probably saved his life. Gault said he can only vaguely remember the wake and funeral for his father, still in shock about what had happened to him.
I remember a man coming to the door though, and he said he was ashamed to be a Catholic. And I said: “It wasn’t Catholics who murdered the people – it was terrorists”. I remember at the time, Catholic people who lived in the area being ashamed – people were ashamed of their own religion – but theses were terrorists who did this.
It was a move that rattled the Republican movement as even those who previously had supported the IRA, saw an attack on a commemoration for the dead as barbaric.
27 years on, Gault still feels the effects of his injuries that day and the pain in his heart remains sharp, intensified by the fact that that no one has even been convicted of the crime.
A furious Margaret Thatcher said at the time no stone would be left unturned until those responsible were tracked down and punished. Two years ago, the PSNI launched a new investigation into the bombing, but still none of the people responsible have been made accountable.
Gault has been campaigning for years to get justice for his family and for the many other victims of violence during the Troubles.
“The hard thing is walking up the street seeing people I know who would have had connections to terrorism in the past and you’re left carrying that on your shoulders,” he said. “We have this so-called peace in the north but at what cost? Secret deals have been done and the government has let down the victims for the sake of peace.
People like me and others affected by these atrocities deserve the justice and truth and closure. ”
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The young prime minister Gabriel Attal has recognized the genuine grievances of French farmers, shared by farmers in several European countries. Too much unnecessary red tape (bureaucrats trying to intensify their power by imposing increased paperwork); too much blaming food producers for pollution; too much money required to stay in farming. In Brussels, Paris and Berlin there are 5-day civil servants; but there’s no such thing as a 5-day farmer.
@Garreth Byrne: all that red tape creates lots of civil service jobs,and their unsackable.
@jak: to keep your food and drink cheaper than it would be.
You sometimes get the distinct impression that some of Europe’s political elites really don’t have a clue about where the food they eat comes from and that real people called farmers work hard to make their livings producing and providing it. “Farmers, you say? Aren’t they the happy workers from the factories where they make the food that my staff purchase from those supermarket places?”
@William Tallon: That’s true, I know nothing about farming but I certainly have great respect for the work they do, hours they put in for little gain .
CANT BEAT Le Bleu farmers.Hope we fare better tonight.As a Munster supporter I want Pete to have a good beginning to 6 Nations Campaign.Without our Irish Farmers we gave no Country,the backbone of our Nation and prosperity.
No farmers no food is a myth in Ireland. Lots of our food is imported and lots of our meat is exported.
@Padraig O’Brien: Ok, If there was no farmers in the *whole world*, what would you live on? Furze bushes?
France 12 – 18 Ireland COYBIG
Are if there were no car makers there wouldn’t be cars etc.. We have produce food sustainably. Seen the iFA fella on prime time last night tyring to defend excessive use of nitrates. Time is now.
All I hear is farmers complaining they work hard and make no money…
I heard a good saying today” you don’t have to be smart to be a farmer, but don’t be stupid ”
Give up the farm if it is not viable, there’s plenty of jobs out there..
The farmers that really work hard and put in 10 plus hours a day are making money, because these are dairy farmers..there is no need for 95% of beef farmers to be home all day collecting subsidies and complaining about how it’s not enough..get a job
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